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12 people were killed, 10 people were injured during yesterday's terrorist attack at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. It was an object of threats by extremists nine years ago, when it republished cartoons of Muhammad from the Danish periodical Jyllands-Posten. Muslims were indignant about the directly provocative publications.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of YUKOS, urged the mass media to publish cartoons of Muhammad, expressing journalisti, solidarity by such means. It seems Mr. Khodorkovsky hasn’t analyzed what the result of such actions could be. Dina Lisyanskaya, an expert on Arab issues, PhD student of the Jewish University in Jerusalem, the co-author of a booked titled “The Muslim Brotherhood,” an expert on propaganda of radical Islam in the West, is on top of the issues. Vestnik Kavkaza presents an article by www.polosa.co.il, where Lisyanskaya speaks about the developments.
Latifa ibn Zaiten, mother of Imad, a Muslim soldier who was killed by the terrorist Muhammad Mera in Toulouse, described such a scene in her book “Dying for France”:
“I walked down a street of the district where the murderer of my son lived. On March 11th 2012 Mera telephoned Imad and agreed about selling a bike. Imad came to look at the bike, and the murderer shot at him just because my son served in the army, as if he had fought against Muslims. Teenagers sat near Mera’s house. They were smoking, shouting and spitting. All of them were Muslims. I asked them: “Good afternoon. Can you do a favor for me? Do you know where Muhammad Mera lives?”
- Of course we know, - the guys said. –Everyone knows where Mera lives. In this house. You read in the newspapers, watched him on TV, didn’t you?
Latifa ignored their questions and continued: “What do you think about him?”
- Madame, Mera is Shakhid. He died for Allah and now he is an Islamic hero. He managed to bring the whole of France to its knees!
Latifa couldn’t stand it and asked them angrily:
- Do you know who I am?
- No, madame.
- I am Imad’s mother, the first soldier who was shot by Muhammad Mera.
The guys lowered their heads.
- Madame, we are sorry. We didn’t know. We are so sorry.
But Latifa can’t help but continue: “Do you understand what you say? Is he an Islamic hero? The man who killed my son? Muhammad Mera is not a hero, not an example, not a symbol! He is just a criminal who doesn’t deserve to have the name of our Prophet. How can you say things like that?! Islam is not a religion of murder or suffering deaths. Islam is a religious of peace and generosity!”
The teenagers tried to calm her down:
- Madame, we are sure, if Mera knew that your son was Muslim, he would never have killed him.
However, Latifa said that this was not about religion. Mera must not kill a Jew or a Christian either. The guys began to explain to her the poor position of Muslims in the world and that there was jihad against everybody who should be blamed for this, i.e. against everybody who is not a Muslim.
The dialogue between Latifa and the aggressive teenagers is a miniature of the dialogue which has been taking place between moderate Muslims and radical Islamists in France and other countries for ages.
Both of them have representatives at the political level, who state that they stand for the interests of all Muslims of France, even though none of them represents all Muslim communities and ideological movements.
For example, the most well-known representatives of moderate Muslims are two figures: Dalil Boubakeur and Sohib Bensheikh.
Boubakeur was born in Algeria. He is the head of the French Committee for Muslim Affairs (Conseil français du culte musulman) –CFCM. The government believes he is the main mufti of French Muslims, as he has been the rector of the Main Paris Mosque for more than 20 years. Boubakeur was appointed to the position of the head of the CFCM by Nikolas Sarkozy when he was Interior Minister in 2002-2007. Sarkozy decided to integrate the Muslims of the country into French society completely and tried to encourage such open French Muslims as Boubakeur, who wore European suits and spoke French fluently without any accent. In fact, Boubakeur is the image of a Muslim that is wanted by the French government. And Boubakeur succeeded in his role and turned the Main Paris Mosque into a center of moderate Islam.
Another prominent representative of the liberal movement in Islam is Sohib Bensheikh, who was also born in Algeria. Bensheikh is a Muslim scholar and follows a liberal interpretation of sacred writings which reject aggression and jihad against anybody.
Bensheikh is trying to build a political career and has several times unsuccessfully participated in parliamentary elections. He thinks his main task is “to free Muslims from ignorance,” as he says. In the past, Bensheikh was the main mufti of Marseilles. He stands against any external manifestation of belonging to Islam, such as Muslim clothes and other religious accessories. He launched into the French Muslim reality such terms as “a good Muslim” (a Muslim who is actually French, looks like French, thinks and behaves like a French person) and “a bad Muslim” (a person who wears traditional Islamic clothes and calls for people to live according to Shariah laws).
If we look at the opposite side of the scale, ignoring numerous medium variants, forms of religious and civic identifications, we will find a lot of radical Islamic organizations in France, which call for Muslims to distance themselves from French culture, remaining Muslims. Moreover, the main pillar of all Muslims in the world, including Muslims of France, according to the ideas of the organizations, is exclusive loyalty to the Islamic Ummah (nation), which doesn’t tolerate competition. It means a Muslim has no right to be faithful to a state which doesn’t live according to Shariah laws.
Young people often choose the side of political adherence and identify themselves with anti-governmental organizations, which call for power of Muslims in France over the non-Muslim population.
That’s how many young Muslims of France turn to Salafi ideas and views and attract Christians to their side, who choose the most radical Islamic movements and become the main ideologists of local Salafi movements. For example, the main author of the articles on the French Salafi website calls himself Mikhail Abu Laina al Faransi. Al Faransi, which means “a Frenchman”, is his pen name, as well as all the other parts of his name, except for Mikhail.
Unlike moderate leaders of French Muslims, Salafists prefer not to cooperate with the media. They don’t want to be expelled from the country for supporting terrorist activities at the ideological level. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood which urge to live according to Muslim rules (like Salafists), but doesn’t call for open jihad against France, is well-known for its powerful leaders. They are the most acknowledged representatives of the Muslim community in the country. Ahmad Jaballah, a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, is the head of the Union of Muslim Organizations of France – UOIF (Union des Organisations Islamiques de France). Jaballah is also a member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR).
Results of public opinion polls among the Muslim population of France showed that the majority of Muslims of the country believe that the UOIF, which is headed by the Muslim Brotherhood, represents their interests in the government in the best way, rather than the artificially established CFCM, where such representatives of the old generation of Muslim politics of France as Dalil Boubakeur and his friends are elected.
Speaking about the teenagers who were described by Latifa Ibn Zaiten in her book, we can say that they see a symbol of a struggle of Islam against a universal evil in the terrorist Muhammad Mera, as they are being raised in districts in which the social protests of the Arabs and Muslims of France against the government have influence. The movement has no political representation, even though it is fed ideologically by extremist movements. At the same time, the movement has real force and influence on Muslim teenagers of France through street culture and music. For example, speaking about French rap, African French artists and Arabs from North Africa dominate in the genre. Most of them are Muslims, and they use Islamic topics and terms in their songs, as well as ideas of the Arab revolution which is upcoming in France.
For example, there are such lines in a song titled “La France”, which was forbidden by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2000 for encouraging anti-governmental protests and aggression:
France is a bitch who betrayed us,
The System makes us hate them (ministers, the government, the police).
Hatred turns our words into obscene shouts.
Soon you will see Arabs and blacks in the Élysées Palace (the presidential palace).
The teenagers described by Latifa in her book are being raised on such songs and the ideology of hatred and aggression. They live in poor districts, suburbs of big French cities. It is a French variant of Harlem, where even the police fear to go. Latifa describes them. She is a religious Muslim who tries to find meaning in life, not in death: “I saw a group of little Muhammed Meras in front of me, disgracing the Prophet’s name, future murderers who will be recruited by those who corrupt my religion, trying to get into power.”
